One of the sweetest things about Dolly Meets Dale (Radio 2, Saturday) was the prelude to the interview proper. Dale (Winton) explained that he'd got the call to do the show while holidaying in Florida. He didn't say holidaying though, as Dale suddenly had such a transatlantic tilt to his delivery it was enough to induce jetlag.

"I was on vacation," he told Dolly (Parton). "I was sunbathing." His BBC boss, he continued, asked: "Dale, watcha doin'?" With a less likable presenter, you'd quickly feel a bit queasy at this, but he just sounded so smitten and desperate for Dolly to like him. "I caaaaaan't ask that," he drawled, on the question of her age. "But this isn't your first rodeo."

Given the subject and interrogator, this was never going to be a hard-hitting encounter. Instead it was life-affirming, cheering and plain gorgeous, thanks to Dolly's turn of phrase ("I always had a very static electricity, even before we had real electricity"), some lively anecdotes – including one about wisely not giving Elvis half the publishing rights to I Will Always Love You in return for recording it – and her glorious songs. The show played out with Islands in the Stream: if you weren't beaming and singing along by this point, you should have checked for a pulse.